Translator Jamal Assadi
My Connections with Arab-Israelis
English Summer Camp
Jamal Assadi
In 2007 I was introduced, through a twist of circumstances that seemed like fate, to Jamal Assadi. Jamal, his wife Dalia, and their six children are natives of Deir al Assad, Israel, an Arab village in the northern Galilee. Jamal has his Ph.D. in English literature from Newcastle-on-Tyne University and is the senior lecturer in the Department of English at the Teacher's College of Sakhnin, an Israeli-Arab institution.
Many Americans don't realize that the population of Israel is about 20% Arab, including Muslim and Christian Palestinians, Druse, and Bedouins. Jamal Assadi and his family are Muslim Palestinians. Late in 2007 I visited the Assadi family and the College of Sakhnin wih a friend and one of my sons, and during that visit Jamal and Dalia and I cooked up a plan to perk up the summer for some children in their village.
English Summer Camp Swim Party, 2009
Children in the English Summer Camp
In July 2008, 7 Americans (3 adults and 4 youths) taught classes in English to Deir al Assad schoolchildren for two weeks. We visitors experienced wonderful hospitality—from our host families; from the school principal, teachers, and staff; from the entire village.
The students, 104 boys and girls ages 7 to 13 from Al Ain ("The Spring") Elementary School were bright, enthusiastic, and full of energy. Our curriculum was more English summer camp than school.
Crafts, 2009
Students in the Summer Camp
Preparing a Meal
"Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes" was a big hit, as were pictures made with colored tissue-paper, jumping through a ladder stretched on the ground to instructions called out in English, playground soccer, and explanations of American idioms and proverbs. ("Don't buy a pig in a poke" has a Deir al Assad equivalent: "Don't marry a bride from another village.").
In July 2009, another group of 7—some repeaters, some newbies—went back to Deir al Assad for two weeks. Another trip and English summer camp is planned for the summer of 2010. The goal for summer 2011 is to bring six or eight students from the village to the U.S.
Short Stories
For several years, Jamal Assadi has been translating short stories by Israeli-Palestinian writers from Arabic into English. For the last couple years I've been helping him with the vagaries of English. From the tiny bit of Arabic I've learned, I can see that translating that dense and flowing language into English must be a challenge. Jamal has put his shoulder to the wheel. Reading the short stories he has translated has made me more aware of the differences and similarities of our cultures and people.
Jamal's first volume of translations, A Rose to Hafeeza's Eyes, is a collection of short stories of Mohammad Ali Taha. Assadi's second book of translations is Father and Son: Selected Short Fiction by Hanna Ibrahim Elias and Mohammad Ali Saeid. Assadi's third volume of translations (you can see he is a translation machine!) is entitled Three Voices from the Galilee: Selected Short Stories by Mohammad Naffaa, Zaki Darwish, and Naji Dahe. Assadi is currently translating short stories by Palestinian women for another anthology. I'm enjoying reading these very much.
Read a sample story from the Darwish book: The Last Supper [PDF].
A Rose to Hafeeza's Eyes
Translated by Jamal Assadi
"Mohammad Ali Taha is a well-known Palestinian writer residing in Galilee as an Israeli citizen. Despite his fame in the Arab world, his works are still unfamiliar to Western audiences. In this volume, translator Jamal Assadi has collected a selection of Tahas short stories, representing a variety of themes, styles, historical periods, contexts, settings, tones, languages, narrations, and characters, with the intent to help Taha enter what Edward Said calls the large, many-windowed house of human culture as a whole. In his introduction, Assadi discusses the culture, traits, and manners of Tahas world, which provides the reader with a greater appreciation and understanding of the short stories in this volume." [from the book jacket]
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Father & Son
Selected Short Fiction by Hanna Ibrahim Elias and Mohammad Ali Saeid
Edited and Translated by Jamal Assadi
"Father and Son is a collection of short stories by Hanna Ibrahim Elias and Mohammad Ali Saeid, who have managed to compel into unity the contradictions of being Israeli citizens and sons of the Palestinian people. These stories span over fifty years and so faithfully record the rise and development of the various aspects of what is called, paradoxically, Israeli-Palestinian life." [from the book jacket]
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Three Voices from the Galilee
Selected Short Stories by Mohammad Naffaa, Zaki Darwish and Naji Daher
Edited and Translated by Jamal Assadi
with assistance from Martha Moody and Ibrahim Darwish
"Three Voices from the Galilee is the third in a series of volumes meant to present the short fiction of Mohammad Naffaa, a political activist, Zaki Darwish, an educator, and Naji Daher, a journalist. These stories faithfully record the development of the various aspects of what is paradoxically called Israeli-Palestinian life. Readers of this volume will encounter serious stories strewn with light and humorous scenes and stories of intense love mixed with stories of the unusual. Story after story presents a different choice in terms of point of view, gender and setting. Each character is exciting and convincing. While casual readers of this volume will taste the flavor of a different culture, scholars interested in Arabic literature will be provided with new arenas for academic evaluations and critique." [from the book jacket]
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